Nichols' translation of Gorgias is indeed impressive. I have heard and read other translations of Gorgias- but the word choice of those other translation is too unadmirable(like "knack"-a word that is not fitted with Platonic dialogues). Nichols keeps consistent and easily understandable words. He doesn't go about saying "smart" words- unlike others who seem to try and exhaust their vocab. before they finish the work.

This is one of my favorite Socratic dialogues. The evidence suggests that Plato wrote it soon after the execution of Socrates, and while I would not say there is a bitter edge to this Gorgias dialogue, I can definitely say that the exchanges do get a little lively at times. At one point, I could almost hear the voices of Socrates and Polus being raised as they argued. Another positive aspect of this dialogue is the fact that it is comparatively easy to understand. Socrates does not start spouting ideas about true Forms or using geometry to prove his points; the more esoteric, more advanced Platonic ideas are to be found in Plato's later writings. In many ways, this dialogue also serves as an introduction to Plato's masterpiece The Republic. Socrates' ideas on some things seem nascent at this point, and he actually contradicts some points he would later make, but the heart of Socratic thought lies within easy grasp in the pages of this dialogue.

The dialogue begins as a discussion about the true nature of oratory. The famed orator Gorgias is in town, and Socrates is most anxious to have a discussion with him. At first, Gorgias' younger friend Polus desires to speak for Gorgias, but he proves little match for Socrates. When Gorgias enters the discussion, Socrates treats him very well, as a respectable man with whom he disagrees, and Gorgias for his part is never flustered by Socrates' description of his art as a knack and as a form of pandering. Later, Callicles bravely jumps into the mix, and things really get interesting. Socrates seemingly admires Callicles' courage to state what he means without shame, yet he winds up getting Callicles to agree with his points in the end. What is it all about? The main points that Socrates makes are that it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong, and that it is better for a man to be punished for his wrongs than to escape punishment. Implicit in his argument is the belief that all wrongdoing is the result of ignorance; following up on this idea, he declares that dictators and politicians who hold vast powers are the most miserable men of all. He goes so far as to describe Athenian heroes such as Pericles as bad men because the state was less healthy when they left office than when they took office, the proof being that such men eventually lost power and were even ostracized.

For Socrates, happiness comes from being virtuous and self-disciplined. The orator can make a great speech and convince his peers that he is right, but he does this by inculcating belief rather than knowledge in the minds of his audience; he requires no knowledge to win such a debate, and as a result he tells the people what he knows they want to hear rather than what is truly best for them. Right and wrong are immaterial to the orator, Socrates charges. Callicles urges Socrates to give up his immature fixation on philosophy and become a public speaker; were he to be brought to court and charged with a wrong, Callicles tells him that he would be unable to defend himself. Much of the concluding pages consist of a wonderful defense by Socrates of his way of life. He agrees that a court could rather easily try and execute him, but if that were to happen, only his accusers would suffer for it. His thoughts are for the next world, and he has no fear of death because he believes a man with a clean, healthy soul such as his will be given immediate access to the isles of the blessed. The execution of Socrates was clearly on Plato's mind as he wrote this particular discourse.

I would recommend this dialogue to individuals seeking an introduction to Plato's philosophy. The entire discussion is clear throughout and easily comprehensible, and it proves interesting to see how some of Plato's thoughts changed between the years separating this dialogue and The Republic.

The single most impressive aspect of this dialogue is Socrates defense of the "good" against subjectivist arguments by Sophists; arguments which remain with us today albeit in different forms. Thus it is a truly relevant dialogue.

On the one hand, Socrates denies that an individual's supposed superiority determines right and wrong. In modern terms we'd call this the Nietzchean will to power argument. He cleverly kills the might-makes-right argument, by extreme individualists, by showing how ultimately the mob is more powerful than any individual. Thus this reasoning falls through. Yet, at the same time, Socrates denies that truth is determined by mere numbers or by popular vote. After all, Socrates wasn't condemned to death by a dictator or an aristocracy but by a democracy. Food for thought!

This is a nice translation in modern idiom and can be easily read in just a few sittings.

The inclusion of "The Seventh Letter" and "The Eighth
Letter," purportedly ascribed to Plato, in this edition of
the *Phaedrus* deserves a comment or two. The translation
and Introductions in this edition by Penguin Classics are
by Walter Hamilton. The edition is copyrighted 1973, but
the copy I have has a last reprinting date of 1988.
The "Introduction" to the Letters states: "Plato's written
works include, in addition to the dialogues, a collection
of thirteen letters. They have formed part of the Platonic
canon since the 1st century A.D. and possibly since the
3rd century B.C., and one in particular, the Seventh,
which is as long as all the rest together, is a document
of crucial importance for our knowledge of Plato's life.
It opens with an account of his early development and of
his reasons for abstaining from public affairs, and it
records in detail the motives which led -- in later life --
to his famous and unsuccessful excursion into the practical
politics of Sicily and his relations with Dionysius II of
Syracuse. It may almost be said that without the Seventh
Letter, Plato's personal history would be unknown."
Plato's relation in the 7th Letter is: "When I was a
young man I expected, like many others to embark, as
soon as I was my own master, on a political career."
[But a revolution occurs in Athens...and the rule of
the 30 is established.] "Naturally enough, in view of
my youth,I expected that this government would bring
about a change from corrupt to upright administration,
and I watched with the keenest interest to see what
they would do. I found that it had taken these men
no time at all to make the previous government look like
an age of gold... So when I saw this and the kind
of men who were active in politics and the principles
on which things were managed, I concluded that it was
difficult to take part in public life and retain one's
integrity, and this feeling became stronger the more I
observed and the older I became."
The *Phaedrus,* on the other hand,
deals with the nature of Love...and the Soul...and
the Realm of Reality and Truth beyond this world
of the senses and shadows... illusions...the Love
spoken of is spoken of in context with the Athenian
mores of the time...it is the Love between two males...
Hamilton's edition is excellent in many ways...he
divides the text at important places and inserts titles
and analyses which alert the reader to the topics which
are going to be discussed in the next section--and
his footnotes are excellent and enlightening as well.
Here are examples of two of his title inserts at most
important places in the dialogue: The Myth./The Allegory
of the Charioteer and His Horses./The Procession of the
Gods and the Vision of Reality./The Fall, Incarnation,
and Liberation of the Soul./The Privilege of the
Philosopher./Recollection as a Means to the Recapture
of Knowledge of the Forms./" ...and... "The Charioteer
Allegory Resumed./The Subjugation of Appetite, typified
by the Bad Horse, and The Awakening of Love for the
Lover in the Beloved./A Concluding Prayer to the God
for Lysias and Phaedrus./"
Hamilton's translation of the dialogue is good, though
there are places that don't please me personally, such
as this: "You are a dear fellow, Phaedrus, genuine gold
all through, if you suppose me to mean that Lysias has
completely missed the mark, and that it is possible to
compose a second entirely different speech." Benjamin
Jowett, in the Dover edition containing both *Symposium*
and *Phaedrus,* translates this as: "You are a dear golden
simpleton if you suppose me to mean that Lysias has
altogether missed the mark, and that I can make a speech
from which all his arguments are to be excluded." And
R. Hackforth, in the Collected Dialogues and Letters
edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, translates
it as: "How kind you are, Phaedrus, and what a pattern
of golden-age simplicity, in supposing me to mean that
Lysias has wholly missed the mark and that another speech
could avoid all his points! Surely that couldn't be so
even with the most worthless of writers."
I much prefer the R. Hackforth translation...it seems
to me to be TRUER to the Spirit and the Subject of the
dialogue...he doesn't flinch...and his prose is clear
and lucid...and meaningful...
But this Hamilton edition is less expensive...as is
the Dover Jowett...and this Hamilton edition has the
excellent inserts in the text which explain what is
being discussed and the flow and pattern
of the argument:
"The argument for the immortality of soul is, like
the final argument of the *Phaedo,* a dialectical
argument; Plato believes that this is something
which can rightly be demonstrated. What soul is
like, however, and the nature of its existence
can be described only in symbols, or what Plato
terms a 'myth.'"
Here is Hamilton at his best: "...and when he
catches sight of the loved one [he] is ready to die
of fear. So at last it comes about that the soul of
the lover waits upon his beloved in reverence and awe.
Thus the beloved finds himself being treated like a god
and receiving all manner of service from a lover whose
love is true love and no pretence, and his own
nature disposes him to feel kindly towards his
admirer."
...it appears the dialogue, here, also resorts
to myth...

A special mood is induced by reading Plato, the product of an elite society whose ideal was leisurely contemplation. Indeed, it is an activity that seems to clash at every point with our own unreflective society whose thought currency is minted in soundbites and advertising slogans. People are not encouraged to be philosophical nowadays, so it is mainly the resort of the antisocial and the willfully eccentric who are in this way enabled to look down on the 'crude, vulgar masses.' Who, reading a book of Plato's, hasn't felt something of this pleasure?

If there is one book by Plato that can be considered to have a more mainstream appeal then it must surely be "The Symposium." The subject of love is of interest to us all and worthy of investigation as behind this word, perhaps the most overstretched in our language, there are so many possible meanings.

With this book we are able to eavesdrop on an after dinner party conversation by some truly great minds. As always, Plato is happy to present more than one view. Of course, the shocking point for the mainstream modern reader is that most of the discussion concerns homosexual love, nevertheless much of what is said can also be applied to many heterosexual situations.

Among the participants presented with perhaps some semblance to their original characters, are the great Athenian comic playwright, Aristophanes, and, towards the end, the party is enlivened by the arrival of the controversial Alcibiades, possibly the most brilliant statesman and soldier of his generation. It is through him and his confession of attempted seduction that we learn a great many details about Plato's mentor, Socrates.

The translator, Christopher Gill, succeeds in presenting the chain of argument in a clear, lucid style, further supplemented by a fine, lengthy introduction and copious notes for those unfamiliar with late fifth century BC Greece.

This is perhaps the most enjoyable of Plato's dialogues, and one of the most enduring.

Plato imagines his mentor Socrates, the comic playwright Aristophanes, and other Athenian luminaries of the Golden Age met for a dinner party and a night of discussion on the nature of love. The various guests present their positions in manners ranging from thoughtful to hilarious, but all of this is but an appetizer for the main course: Socrates' concept of Eros as the fuel for the soul's ascent to the Divine, as revealed in Socrates' reminiscence of his own mentor, Diotima, the woman of Mantinea. At the end, a drunken Alcibiades breaks in upon the festivities to reveal Socrates as an avatar of the very divine Eros which he praises.

Robin Waterfield's Oxford translation is one of the best. He captures each speaker's individual idiom, a major translational feat in itself. That he is able to do so and also render the text into lucid modern English is a further coup. The Oxford edition also includes an extensive introduction, very helpful notes, and a complete bibliography.

The Symposium is great philosophy, great literature, an intimate peek at the social life of one of western civilization's formative eras, a work of spiritual inspiration and transformation, and, not least, a wonderful read. Most highly recommended!

Plato's "Symposium" will always be read because there will always be people who question the nature of Love. Agathon's dinner party is the scene of a conversation between a small group of men, who go around the table offering their views on Love. What does Love mean to us to-day? Reading over the responses of the dinner-guests and their host, we find the same range of answers in Ancient Greece that we are likely to find now.

Phaedrus and Pausanias are utilitarians and materialists. Phaedrus looks at love between people and a proto-Burkean love for government and state. Pausanias complicates the argument, saying that there are two different kinds of love, one which is common and one which is heavenly - yet still oriented towards the real and the tangible. Eryximachus is a proto-Swedenborg, trying to reconcile or harmonize the two kinds of love.

The jewels of Plato's "Symposium" are Aristophanes and Socrates. Aristophanes gives us the profoundly moving depiction of Love as a fundamental human need, a desire for completion. For a writer of comedy, whose aim as an art form is forgiveness and acceptance, Aristophanes's explanation is no surprise, though its depth is amazing. While women are generally discounted throughout the "Symposium," not only does Socrates, as we might expect, completely astound his audience (both inside the book and out) with his progressively logical and ascendant view of Love, but he also does it through the voice of a woman, Diotima. When we realize that Socrates is a character in this fiction, and that his words originate in a woman, the egalitarianism and wisdom of Plato the author truly shines forth, like the absolute beauty he claims as the ultimate goal of Love.

Was Plato a feminist? I don't know. I do know that the "Symposium" is a tremendous book. I picked it up and did not stop reading it until I was finished. The style of the Penguin translation is smooth, with a lighthearted tone that can make you forget that you are reading philosophy. Plato's comedic masterpiece in the "Symposium" is the character of Alcibiades, who provides the work a fitting end. Get the "Symposium" and read it now. You cannot help but Love it...in a Platonic sort of way.

While Ammianus Marcellinus is an excellent source, the Penguin edition is abridged. In spite of the maps, etc., included by the publisher, I was disappointed. I had to buy a better version.

"This is the history of events from the reign of the Emperor Nerva to the death of Valens, which I, a former soldier and a Greek, have composed to the best of my ability. It claims to be the truth, which I have never ventured to pervert either by silence or a lie. The rest I leave to be written by better men whose abilities are in their prime. But if they choose to undertake the task I advise them to cast what they have to say in grand style."

Thus ends Marcellinus's history of Rome. Although we have extant only the period from Constantius II to Valens (354 - 378 AD) it is enough to establish Marcellinus as one of the great ancient historians. It chronicles a troubled time near the end of the Roman Empire in the West and the advent of a new order in Europe. Beginning with the paranoid reign of Constantius II, the arian son of Constantine the Great, Marcellinus then focuses on Julian the Apostate and his meteoric rise to the purple. A throw-back to the time of the "virtuous pagans" like Marcus Aurelius, Julian attempts to reinvigorate the moribund corpse of classical paganism, moves steadily to put Christianity on the outs, and even attempts to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. However, all his efforts come to naught in portentious ways, ending in his death while on a calamitous campaign in Persia.

The work climaxes at the destruction of a Roman field army and death of the Emperor Valens at Adrianople by the Goths in 378. This catastrophe ranks along with Salamis, Pharsalus, Manzikert, and Lepanto in terms of being a battle that effectively changed the course of history. After the defeat, Gothic tribes roamed practically at will throughout the Empire, even sacking Rome in 410 AD and laying claim to all of Italy less than 100 years later.

Though criticized by later historians, Marcellinus maintains a vivid style throughout the work that holds the reader's attention. This Penguin edition is abridged, giving greater weight to the reign of Julian than to Valentinian I or Valens. The translation manages to preserve well the "grand style" urged by Marcellinus. All in all, it is an excellent resource for the student of late classical history.

Even the most confirmed buffs of ancient or medieval history generally take a while to get around to reading Ammianus. Part of the problem may be that his history falls into the transition period between the ancient and medieval worlds, and thus lies outside the principal sphere of interest for confirmed buffs of either period. Another problem is that of the the four Roman emperors who dominate this history - Constantius II, Julian, Valentinian I and Valens - only the second is a particularly sympathetic character. No matter. This history covers a fascinating epoch - the hinge between the ancient and medieval worlds - and it is full of both intriguing details and unforgettably vivid set pieces, many of which are derived from the author's own personal experience.

Ammianus Marcellinus was an emblematic figure of these transitional times - a Greek army officer who wrote his history in Latin; a man of the east, born in Antioch, who spent most of his military career facing the Persians along the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire, but who finished his life as a man of letters in Rome itself; and a pagan who viewed the rise of Christianity with detached objectivity.

The quarter century covered by the surviving books of his history - the years 354 to 378 A.D. - begins with the Roman Empire in its late antique heyday. The Empire is still the greatest military power of its time, but is wasting its strength in massive civil wars. At the beginning of Ammianus's narrative, the Empire's main external enemy is still Persia, but his history covers the critical years in which the Roman frontier defenses in the west first began to show signs of cracking under the pressure of the German tribes east of the Rhine. His history recounts the final years of the competent, but superstitious and insecure, emperor Constantius II, the last surviving son of Constantine the Great; the rise in the west of Julian ("the Apostate"), who succeeds his cousin Constantius in 361 and launches two quixotic and ill-starred enterprises -- his attempt to restore paganism as the official faith of the Empire and a massive invasion of Persia that ends with his own death; and the beginning of the divided rule of the Empire under the two brothers Valentinian I and Valens. Ammianus's history closes on a night of blood and fire with the appalling Roman defeat by the Visigoths and Ostrogoths on the plains of Thrace near Adrianople - a portentous event that would lead, in less than a third of a century, to the fall of Rome itself.

For the first ten years covered by his history, Ammianus was serving as an intelligence officer on the general staff of the Roman Army of the East. He was an interesting personality: a military man with an intellectually curious and wide-ranging mind; an unsentimental realist about human nature, but intensely loyal to those he respected; and a man who could pay appropriate tribute to those whom politics or international rivalries made his enemies. These qualities come through in his account (from 355 A.D.) of a chillingly effective covert operation in which he and a small group of officers were sent by Constantius to find a way to eliminate the commander of the Roman Army of the Rhine, who had been forced to declare himself emperor. The mission was a success: they bribed some of the commander's German auxiliaries, who as Ammianus recounts, "made their way into the palace, dragged Silvanus, who was on his way to a Christian service, from the shrine in which the panic-stricken man had taken refuge, and butchered him with repeated sword-thrusts." Then he eulogizes his victim: "Such was the end of a commander of no small merit, who was driven by fear of the slanders in which a hostile clique [at the court of Constantius] had ensnared him in his absence to adopt extreme measures of self-defense."

As an example of the vivid first-person accounts that make this book so memorable, I offer the following passage, in which Ammianus describes his adventures in 359 A.D. as the undermanned Roman outposts west of the Tigris brace for the onslaught of an immense Persian army:

"[We] marched in haste to make ready for the defense of Nisibis, fearing that the Persians might disguise their intention to besiege it and then fall upon it unaware. While the necessary measures were being pushed on inside the walls, smoky fires were seen flickering from the direction of the Tigris past the Moors' Fort and Sisara and the rest of the country in an unbroken chain right up to the city, in such unusual numbers that it was clear that the enemy's raiding parties had broken through and crossed the river. We hurried on at full speed in case the roads should be blocked, but when we were two miles from the city we came upon a child crying in the middle of the road. He was a fine boy, apparently about eight years old, and was wearing a neck ornament. He told us that he was the son of a man of good family, and that his mother, panic-stricken at the approach of the enemy, had abandoned him because he was an impediment to her flight. Our general pitied him, and on his orders I set the boy before me on my horse and took him back to the city, but I found the walls already invested and enemy parties scouring the neighborhood.

"Dreading to find myself involved in the mysteries of a siege, I put the boy in the shelter of a postern gate that was not entirely shut, and galloped back half dead with fear to rejoin our column, but I only just avoided capture."

The informative and often puckishly witty notes accompanying this volume by Andrew Wallace-Hadrill also merit commendation.